A former detective with the Metro Nashville Police Department, Mike McCarty has dedicated more than 30 years to violence prevention. He is regarded as one of the nation’s leading experts on violence prevention and has consulted with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense and Justice Department. A devout man of faith, McCarty is CEO of Safe Hiring Solutions and its affiliated company, SafeMinistry Solutions, www.safehiringsolutions.com. He is also the host of The Safety Zone podcast.
Every day I am inundated with news about sexual abuse at churches, Christian camps, or Christian ministries by youth pastors, volunteers, elders, senior leadership, or the senior pastor himself. And far too often, I have seen church and ministry leadership deny or cover up the charges.
The church must step up and intervene on behalf of the domestic violence victim in their congregation or in their community. They must be a safe space where the victim knows that they will be heard, understood, and given the life-saving resources needed to be safe and protected.
Twitter has spent the past year policing political opinions on their platform, most recently banning a post from Focus on the Family, all while sexual predators roam freely, posting and sharing child pornography.
The new law, which was aimed to equalize the disparity between heterosexual and homosexual penalties for “consensual” statutory rape, is questionable, with the most frightening and troubling aspect of the bill being the fact that a child as young as 14 can have “consensual” sexual relations with someone as old as 24.
Our kids' greatest threat comes from internal danger, not external. Pastoral staff need to be wise as serpents and understand the red flags and signs of a sexual predator.
